Storm Ciara - Strong Winds & Potential Snow **TECHNICAL DISCUSSION**

Graces7

Was deep asleep when Ciara decided to wake up. As bad a wind as ever was. Deluge on the windows. Sounds bitty.

redsteveireland

Increase in the max gust at Mace head in the last hour, we've just had another heavy shower pass through.

JanuarySnowstor

@Gaoth laidir......you say a fairly quiet night ahead? Look at the radar the showers are actually intensifying as they cross the country...

Gaoth Laidir

JanuarySnowstor wrote: »

@Gaoth laidir......you say a fairly quiet night ahead? Look at the radar the showers are actually intensifying as they cross the country...

Yes, but after that trough passes it's relatively quiet out west for a time.

Nqp15hhu

We have actually had a few heavy showers in the last hour. It’s down to 4c, so maybe snow by 1am?

Gaoth Laidir

The Tropicaltidbits GFS displays a much more mixed precipitation phase over the next couple of days (green=rain, blue=snow). The sounding for a blue area in tomorrows system in Munster shows just how marginal it will be. Tuesday should be better, but soundings still showing a lot of modification of the surface layer, so inland overnight precip the best chance of snow.

m17

Newport co tipperary

m17

Fishguard

typhoony

scattered showers embedded in the colder air just now appearing on the radar off the west coast, probably still a hail\sleety mix for most places in the west until midnight. Knock currently down to 3c and even Shannon is only 5c

Graces7

typhoony wrote: »

scattered showers embedded in the colder air just now appearing on the radar off the west coast, probably still a hail\sleety mix for most places in the west until midnight. Knock currently down to 3c and even Shannon is only 5c

dry here but the cold is bitter

RobertKK

Heavy sleet shower, north Kilkenny, started at around 5.7C and strong winds, now 3.3C, 1.7C DP.

TTLF

Hows the snow looking for the East coast fellas?
Just curious

kittyn

TTLF wrote: »

Hows the snow looking for the East coast fellas?
Just curious

It’s more or less a nowcast situation..... Depends on how much precipitation makes it over our way and how heavy the showers are .... Time will tell

M.T. Cranium

TTLF wrote: »

Hows the snow looking for the East coast fellas?
Just curious

50-50 chance of seeing some snow in the air, less than one in four of any long-lasting snow cover. Snow on higher slopes of Dublin and Wicklow mountains more likely.

TTLF

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

50-50 chance of seeing some snow in the air, less than one in four of any long-lasting snow cover. Snow on higher slopes of Dublin and Wicklow mountains more likely.

thats grand, all I want is a possible Heavy flakes, doesn't matter if it sticks i dont mind

YanSno

I would disagree with MT. it would be more than 50% chance of seeing snow along the East Coast, tomorrow's band is still on course from Galway to North Dublin line. We should be on the right side of the marginal.

nthclare

Would Clare be on the firing line?

Nqp15hhu

Temperature is down to 3c so maybe snow in the next 3 hours, if we get. A shower.

I am not seeing the marginality that some see. From looking at the charts, the freezing level in Ulster does not exceed 500m from tonight until next Thursday, with a 300-400m level on Tuesday.

To me that is productive for low level snowfall.

Meteorite58

Very windy here in Kerry tonight getting the strongest winds of the day with a gust of 87 km/h a short time ago during a squally shower.

17.5mm

jArgHA

Would anyone have a link to a good layman's guide on how to understand those sounding diagrams?

giveitholly

Knock reporting snow on the latest met eireann reports

littlema

Clear intervals tonight with temp 2.8c and rainfall today of 1.17mm. No wind of any consequence.

Seems U.K. got very heavy flooding& winds with planes diverted & ports shut for a time.

weisses

Meteorite58 wrote: »

Very windy here in Kerry tonight getting the strongest winds of the day with a gust of 87 km/h a short time ago during a squally shower.

17.5mm

same here further west ... very heavy gusts with those showers

Meteorite58

AROME showing it nearly if not as windy tomorrow as it was today and looking like the winds carrying convective clouds far inland with what looks like numerous wintry showers from the midlands to the the East coasts comprising of lots of hail / graupel showers perhaps.

Big convective gusts again to be expected in the Eastern half of the country.

Sporadic lightning again tomorrow, more so in the W, NW perhaps.

Nqp15hhu

Just gone out a quick drive up to 300m. It is snowing above 250m. This bodes well for after midnight if it’s already snowing that low.

I have a video but I don’t know how to upload it!

Oscar Bravo

Hailstones belting off the window here (Castlebar)

Rougies

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

Just gone out a quick drive up to 300m. It is snowing above 250m. This bodes well for after midnight if it’s already snowing that low.

I have a video but I don’t know how to upload it!

https://streamable.com/ is the easiest way to upload videos imo. Just upload the video and it will give you a link that you can post anywhere.

Nqp15hhu

It won’t let me post it.

corsav6

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Hailstones belting off the window here (Castlebar)

Rain belting off the windows out near Newport, not much wind either.

Gonzo

clear here in Meath, radar beginning to look quite empty through much of Leinster. Showers have turned wintry in the west and north.

kerrycork13

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

Just gone out a quick drive up to 300m. It is snowing above 250m. This bodes well for after midnight if it’s already snowing that low.

I have a video but I don’t know how to upload it!

What part of the country are you in?

redsteveireland

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

It won’t let me post it.

Too few posts?

davidsr20

Kermit what you thinking for the next 2 days lol

Monkeynut

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

It won’t let me post it.

Pm the link to me. I can post for you.

Or just separate the link so its not a link.

Monkeynut

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

https://streamable.com/ew45p

This is the video Nqp15hhu made.

Oneiric 3

Only going by my localised experience of this latest named feature, but have to say, that the UKMO, or whatever model the UK Met Office uses in their short range forecasts on their app, proved to be the most accurate regarding gust and mean wind speeds throughout the day. GFS didn't do too bad either. Worst performers by far were the ECMWF & Harmonie, with other high res models such as the Arpege not far behind, although these models did very well with regards forecast rainfall totals.

I've come to the stage now where I just want this winter to end. Like last winter, and most winters before that, it just seems impossible to get a good old fashioned wind storm here in the west of Ireland at least, and I find the search and false hope of seeing them every winter becoming more and more tedious by the year.

Rebelbrowser

I think someone posted this before but meteociel actually carry detailed info from each Irish station (more than met.ie). See for example http://www.meteociel.fr/observations-meteo/point-de-rosee.php?region=uk which shows dew points but click on any station and you get lots more detailed info. Useful for forecasting snow over the next 48 hours...

Oneiric 3

Thanks for that link RebelBrowser. Had that bookmarked one time but it seemed to have went missing from the list. Tried to search for it again but I find it hard to navigate that website. Bookmarked in 'Favourites' now.

Rebelbrowser

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Thanks for that link RebelBrowser. Had that bookmarked one time but it seemed to have went missing from the list. Tried to search for it again but I find it hard to navigate that website. Bookmarked in 'Favourites' now.

Yeah, crazy met.ie dont give that detail. Tried the met.ie wow site GL linked earlier and that didnt seem to be working (showed it was widely 12c across the country).

Gaoth Laidir

jArgHA wrote: »

Would anyone have a link to a good layman's guide on how to understand those sounding diagrams?

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057947753

Nqp15hhu

The leftmost line is the dew point and the red line the air temperature. You are looking for a negative dew point at 1000 (sea level).

If the dew point and temperature are close above 0c, snow is unlikely.

The main determinant is the wet bulb temp which should be close to 0c, which would be the middle line, as explained in the link above.

nthclare

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057947753

Fair play, I asked about lower uppers or upper lowers a while back now I can get more of an understanding.

Thanks

Rougies

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Only going by my localised experience of this latest named feature, but have to say, that the UKMO, or whatever model the UK Met Office uses in their short range forecasts on their app, proved to be the most accurate regarding gust and mean wind speeds throughout the day. GFS didn't do too bad either. Worst performers by far were the ECMWF & Harmonie, with other high res models such as the Arpege not far behind, although these models did very well with regards forecast rainfall totals.

I've come to the stage now where I just want this winter to end. Like last winter, and most winters before that, it just seems impossible to get a good old fashioned wind storm here in the west of Ireland at least, and I find the search and false hope of seeing them every winter becoming more and more tedious by the year.

UKV, part of the "Unified model" (UKMO model suite) which Euro4 is also a part of.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Model

Gaoth Laidir

A few 18Z GFS soundings for a couple of spots around the country (red dots) during that system tomorrow morning. Very saturated profiles, so no scope for evaporative cooling. Temperatures and wbt hovering around zero or slightly above in those blue ("snow") areas, but well above it in the far south. High ground will do very well out of it.

Nqp15hhu

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

A few 18Z GFS soundings for a couple of spots around the country (red dots) during that system tomorrow morning. Very saturated profiles, so no scope for evaporative cooling. Temperatures and wbt hovering around zero or slightly above in those blue ("snow") areas, but well above it in the far south. High ground will do very well out of it.

Thanks for sharing. I have just had a look at that site, it’s fairly good. For my location (Ulster) the wet bulb temp hovers around 0c, rising a tad tomorrow afternoon, then back down. Wet bulb reaches 0c around 3am.

It is currently 1.5c.

I see the GFS is still predicting 516dam on Tuesday afternoon. That is pretty low for an Atlantic air stream!

Xertz

Approximately when is this system expected to be fully clear of Ireland? There are still squally heavy showers in Cork accompanied by fairly blustery gusts at 00:30

Gaoth Laidir

Nqp15hhu wrote: »

Thanks for sharing. I have just had a look at that site, it’s fairly good. For my location (Ulster) the wet bulb temp hovers around 0c, rising a tad tomorrow afternoon, then back down. Wet bulb reaches 0c around 3am.

It is currently 1.5c.

I see the GFS is still predicting 516dam on Tuesday afternoon. That is pretty low for an Atlantic air stream!

I reckon it's underdoing it by a few dams. Today's 12Z Valentia sounding had a thickness of around 543 dam, yet the 06Z GFS run had it at around 538 for the same time. An error of -5 dam just 6 hours out. Something more like 520 dam along the west coast tomorrow seems more likely.

TTLF

Quite surprised but some of these smaller showers are still reaching Dublin! Just had another rain shower, temperature isn’t cold enough yet obviously, :pac:

typhoony

Expect these squalls to penetrate a good way in land, very gusty winds also, probably worse than last 24 hours

heffoo

Hail/sleet falling since midnight in Knockananna Wicklow 225m asl very gusty!